Herbert Behrens-Hangeler

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Herbert Behrens-Hangeler (born August 3, 1898 in Berlin ; † November 20, 1981 in Fredersdorf ) was a German painter , graphic artist and writer.

life and work

Behrens-Hangeler emerged in the 1910s with abstract pictures, collages , Dadaist poems and plays. In the First World War he had been a soldier since 1917 and was wounded. In 1919 he co-founded the artist group “Der Loss” in Bielefeld together with the sculptor Erich Lossie .

He studied painting with Hans Baluschek and Lovis Corinth and music with Ferruccio Busoni . Behrens-Hangeler belonged to the Sturmkreis , from 1921 to 1933 he was a member of the November Group in Berlin. Here he worked as a journalist, among other things as an editor for sports and travel for the Daily Rundschau of the German People's Party (DVP) and took part in exhibitions in Bielefeld, Moscow and the major Berlin art exhibitions . In 1932 he founded the “Selection” group with Lyonel Feininger and Karl Hofer, among others . In the Third Reich , his art was considered degenerate . In particular, a denunciation by the painter Wolfgang Willrich , a fanatical advocate of National Socialist art policy, made public work as a visual artist impossible for Behrens-Hangeler. Behrens-Hangeler worked as a specialist in color films in the film industry , as a director and cameraman on test shots for color films and as a consultant for trick and test shots for Tobis .

After 1945 he was engaged in experimental photography. After attacks by the High Commissioner of the USSR in Germany Semjonow in 1951, his art was considered “formalistic” in the GDR . From 1949 to 1963 he worked as a teacher for color theory and painting technique at the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art . His most famous student was Georg Baselitz . Since 1961 he wrote texts for the Lexikon der Kunst of the Seemann-Verlag Leipzig .

Herbert Behrens-Hangeler was the son of Franz Behrens, a member of the Reichstag, and brother of the Expressionist Franz Richard Behrens .

The hostility in the context of the formalism debate against Behrens-Hangeler reached a sad climax in January 1951. Several artists were attacked sharply in the article " Ways and Wrong Paths of Modern Art" in the newspaper Daily Rundschau . Behrens-Hangeler represented an "even more sharply defined formalistic direction". He and other artists "... try to rob the visual arts of their high ideal and social importance and drag them down into the swamp of lack of ideas, mysticism and banality."

The formalism allegations made Behrens-Hangeler go into internal emigration . He no longer took part in the state-controlled exhibition business. Already terminally ill, Hans-Peter Schulz convinced him to attend an emotional last exhibition, which opened on August 29, 1981 in the Leipziger Galerie on Sachsenplatz . After his death, on the occasion of his 90th birthday in 1988, a retrospective was opened in the Dresden art exhibition in Kühl . The opening speech was given by Klaus Werner .

Herbert Behrens-Hangeler was a member of the German Association of Artists .

Works (selection)

  • Vegetation , 1921
  • Nocturno , 1924
  • In our century / our technical age , 1925/1932/1948
  • Artists , around 1925–28
  • Hemingway , 1927
  • Orchestra picture , 1960

literature

  • Gisela Schulz: Herbert Behrens-Hangeler: Works from the years 1918 to 1976 , Galerie am Sachsenplatz, Leipzig, 1981 (exhibition catalog)
  • Hans-Georg Sehrt (Ed.): Herbert Behrens-Hangeler: 1898–1981 , Hallescher Kunstverein / Stadtmuseum Halle, 2004 (exhibition catalog)
  • Günter Feist (Ed.): Art Documentation SBZ / GDR 1945–1990: Articles, reports, materials . DuMont, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-7701-3846-5 , pp. 202-217.
  • Hermann space (ed.): Fine arts in the GDR . edition ost, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89793-000-5 .
  • Anke Scharnhorst:  Behrens-Hangeler, Herbert . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Poems , Siegen 1987

Filmography

  • 2004 Fredersdorf refuge. Herbert Behrens-Hangeler - An abstract artist in the GDR (film by Ursula and Günter Feist)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gallery ground floor: In our century
  2. ↑ Christoph Buchwald: Jahrbuch der Lyrik 2005 , CH Beck, Munich, 2004 ISBN 978-340651708-2, p. 187
  3. ^ A b Günter Feist and Eckhart Gillen: Kunstkombinat DDR . Dirk Nishen publishing house for the Museum Education Service Berlin, 2nd edition 1990, ISBN 3889400647
  4. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the German Association of Artists since it was founded in 1903 / Behrens-Hangeler, Herbert ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on January 12, 2016)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kuenstlerbund.de
personal data
SURNAME Behrens-Hangeler, Herbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, graphic artist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 1981
Place of death Fredersdorf